Chuck Schaden's conversations
with the
Stars of the
Golden Age of Radio

Foreword by Les Tremayne

Recollections of
the great radio days by the stars who made them great.
In their own words, 46 radio personalities take you back to the good old
days
for a behind-the-scenes look at the way it was
during the golden era
of broadcasting.

"In
those days, you didn’t speak of it as a radio job, because radio didn’t
pay anybody any money. All you did was go in and perform. You could walk in off
the street, into any radio station, and they were glad to have you. If you had a
ukulele under your arm, you could go to work. For nothing."

–JIM JORDAN (Fibber McGee)

"The last year that I
was with General Foods... I had a few shows that weren’t as hot, but I
still had a lot of great shows. So they practically said to me, ‘Watch
it a little bit...’ as though every show had to be perfect, you know.
See, I spoiled them. And then they went back to New York. But the way they
said to me, ‘Just watch it a little bit,’ I got mad."

–JACK BENNY

"I
loved radio best and I’ll tell you why. You could have a life of your own in
radio. It was big time. You did it live. You didn’t dare make a mistake... It
only happened once a week, so you could live like a human being the rest of the
week. I had more personal time when we were in radio. I still get such a kick
out of those radio shows."

–HARRIET NELSON

"I
was called down to audition for something. They said, ‘Just read this.’ I
read it and forgot about it. About a week or so later, I got a call that said,
‘Oh, you’re it.’ And so I did it from then until it went off the air. I
did The Shadow, I guess, longer than anyone."

–BRET MORRISON (Lamont
Cranston)

"The
Mae West episode? --I almost got thrown off the air for life because of that
skit."

–DON AMECHE

Sorry
Wrong Number "...was written for me
by Lucille Fletcher. It was so nerve-racking that I thought, ‘No one will
listen to this.’ The first time we went on the air, they got so excited at the
very end that they didn’t do the right ending. So in about five weeks I
repeated it. I did it 18 times on the air."

–AGNES MOOREHEAD

"I
did not only great things for the program, but also I think I probably saved
radio itself from going downhill almost into oblivion. The president of NBC said
to me, ‘Mr. Vallee, you have demonstrated how powerful radio can be. We are
deeply indebted to you. We feel that, in a way, you have saved the National
Broadcasting Company.’ "

–RUDY VALLEE

"We
used to take what we called a 12-hour vacation. You’d pick an evening when you
were through fairly early and didn’t have a show until perhaps noon the next
day, and you’d imbibe a little heavily and the next morning you were usually a
little hung over but, boy, were you relaxed!"

–WILLARD WATERMAN

"In
one week I did 20 shows. I was doing the Harris show as an actor, I was
producing and directing Suspense, I was producing, directing, editing,
writing openings and closings, and co-starring in On Stage. I was
producing and directing Broadway’s My Beat and I was producing,
directing and writing the openings and closings and editing Crime Classics."

–ELLIOTT LEWIS

"I
remember the introduction for Eddy Duchin, ‘the inimitable piano fingers of
Eddy Duchin.’ Now, you wanted to say that one real fast, and as the announcer,
I did it for some time. You would just stand there and blood would pour down
your face. In an up-voice, too! That was a brute."

This article about
Speaking of Radio was published in the
Arts & Entertainment section of the Chicago Tribune October 26, 2003:

A nostalgic look at
radio’s Golden Age

By Steve Darnall

When Chuck Schaden prepared to interview
actress Agnes Moorehead in 1971, her handlers presented two directives. First,
she was there to promote United General Theaters’ new "mini-theater" concept (we
know them now as multiplexes) and he should stick to that subject. Second, he
had five minutes.

As the host of the weekly nostalgia-fest
"Those Were The Days" (now heard Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. on WDCB-FM 90.9),
Schaden was willing to honor their first request, even though he was more
interested in asking Moorehead about acting opposite Orson Welles on "The
Shadow" or impersonating Eleanor Roosevelt on "The March of Time." As for the
second request...

"I didn’t care if they dragged me out by my
heels; I wasn’t going to do five minutes," Schaden recalls with a laugh from his
Morton Grove home. "Then I started talking with Miss Moorehead about her radio
work... and something happened. She realized that I wasn’t just some guy
representing a three-minute sound bite for some radio station; I knew about her
career on radio." After a few minutes, Moorehead’s handlers began moving in to
wrap things up "and she put her hand out to stop them. It was a very gratifying
conversation."

In the three decades since then, Schaden has
spoken with dozens of actors, directors and writers who took part in that era
known as the Golden Age of Radio. Some were big stars and required listening
(including Jack Benny, Eve Arden and Don Ameche), while others were dependable
character actors; a majority of them are no longer with us.

What Schaden learned about radio history from
these conversations could fill a book, and with the publication of his interview
anthology "Speaking of Radio" (Nostalgia Digest Press, 420 pages, $27;
www.nostalgiadigest.com), it has.

"When I first went on the air, all I thought
about was going on the air with the radio shows," Schaden recalls. "But that
wore off for me quickly. It seemed natural for me to want to talk more about the
programs and the performers and learn more from the performers. When I started
doing this, there was no real written history of the popular culture of radio
and its programs and performers. All of these interviews – each in its own way –
helped fill me in on what was going on."

The 46 interviews in "Speaking of Radio" paint
a fascinating picture of the birth and growth of America’s first real mass
medium, before satellite communications and the ascension of shrill, opinionated
hosts. In those days, as former announcer Harry Von Zell told Schaden in 1974,
radio was "the most intimate and socially personal medium in the world."

As many of Schaden’s interviewees explain,
radio also offered creative options that movies and television couldn’t. Actress
Lurene Tuttle echoed the sentiments of many radio actors when she told Schaden,
"On the air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female
you’ve ever heard in your life. Whatever I wished to be, I could be with my
voice." (Tuttle later became a respected acting coach whose students included a
young Helen Hunt.) In one 1976 interview, Mercedes McCambridge (who gave voice
to the demon in "The Exorcist") recalled playing Tiny Tim opposite John and
Lionel Barrymore in a Christmas Eve radio production of "A Christmas carol,"
despite being so pregnant that she would give birth to her son four hours later.

Because radio emphasized sound and vocal
ability, a truly versatile actor was in great demand. As Schaden points out,
many of his subjects "talk about how they were racing from one program to
another." Former Chicago actor Willard Waterman told Schaden about appearing "on
three networks within 45 minutes. I did the show on CBS [from the Wrigley
Building], ran across the street to the Tribune Tower [the home of WGN]... and I
had about three minutes plus the commercials to make the show [at The
Merchandise Mart, then-home of WMAQ]." Actors who arrived late for a show often
blamed the bridge spanning the Chicago River; years after relocating to
California, a group of Chicago actors formed "The Bridge Is Up Club."

Schaden admits that the book is probably
best-suited for "someone who’s interested in the popular culture of radio,"
conceding that "the interviews did not start out to be any sort of in-depth look
at the total history of radio. It’s more a look at radio as an item in the
popular culture, and these are the people who made it popular."

Even so, "Speaking of Radio" is more than a
niche book: It’s also a fascinating glimpse into the life of actors in the first
half of the 20th Century. Radio veteran (and former Lakeview High School
student) Les Tremayne told Schaden that radio, more than anything before or
since, allowed an actor to become "an upstanding, home-owning,
stay-in-one-place, family-raising... good-credit-risk individual."

Many of those actors, like Tremayne, were
based in Chicago, which was a major radio hub until the early 1940s, and as a
result, tales of the old Windy City abound in "Speaking." Jim Jordan (better
known to radio listeners as "Fibber McGee") recalled coming out of vaudeville in
the early 1920s to sing at Chicago’s WIBO on the corner of Broadway and Devon;
he and his wife received a whopping $10 a week. Waterman recalled having a room
at the Croydon Hotel where he could change into evening clothes – required dress
for most prime-time dramatic shows.

"I think in some cases, these people would
talk to me with a Chicago slant," Schaden says. "I think it just added to the
rapport we had. If they said they were at Broadway and Devon, I would nod and
say "Yes, I understand," and it was because I did understand! I didn’t have the
blank look of an interviewer saying ‘Uh-huh.’ "

As these actors pass on, Schaden’s research
becomes more invaluable. In fact, many of the actors in "Speaking" confess that
his questions remind them of a resume credit they had forgotten. Tremayne, now
90 years old, recalls that "I kept pretty good records, but they were all in my
head." Today, the former star of "The First Nighter" anthology happily
acknowledges that Schaden has done wonders to make later generations aware of
the work of Tremayne and his colleagues.

When Chuck announced that Les was celebrating
his 90th birthday [in April 2003], we got several hundred cards from the
listeners," recalls Tremayne’s wife Joan, "which meant that had to take the time
to sit down, write a card and get it in the mail for the deadline. When your
listeners cooperate to that extent, that’s when you find out what wonderful
people he’s working with and what they think of him."

That respect for both his audience and his
source material is why Schaden chose to publish "Speaking of Radio" himself. "I
have a lot of friends who’ve written published books, and they all seem to tell
the same story: Once they turn it over to the publisher, they’re sitting on the
street, they have no input.

"I’m a publisher who has great respect for the author," he
jokes, "and I’m not messing around with the author."